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strangetrip2018-02-09 02:52 pm
st_oneswidow) wrote in strangetrip2018-02-09 02:52 pm
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[Log] 2/9, A wild, wicked slip of a girl
Curnen had a bit of a meltdown in the wake of check-in day. A bit of a week-long meltdown running with coyotes. Coby manages to get her to come back inside.
It hurts. Hurts like dying. So she runs. What is it? She can't remember. She doesn't want to remember. She can't remember.
Won't.
Can't.
... Won't.
She knows the coyotes are out there somewhere; she's heard them howling. She's howled back to them many times. She knows where they are, how to find them, how to ingratiate herself into their pack. So she does.
Because she's a wild animal, and she shouldn't see people, or talk to them, or sing, even to herself.
The sun and moon pass by overhead. Twice? More? She loses all sense of time.
She hunts with the coyotes, she kills with them, she sleeps with them, she wakes and does it all again. This is where she really belongs. It's easy. It's so easy. It doesn't hurt.
She runs far and fast, and it's almost like flying.
It's never like flying.
It's the best she gets.
It's the best she deserves.
She runs so far she comes round again and there's so much pink. So much fucking pink--
And that was how Curnen Overbay came back to the Madonna Inn after disappearing for a week: on all fours with black eyes and bloody mouth. And ready to bolt and do it right this time.
In London, going a few days without seeing a friend probably wouldn't have registered. Hell, a few weeks might not have stood out. Here, with a few dozen people, if somebody he'd seen in passing but never spoken to wasn't around for a few days, Coby thought he'd probably notice. When he didn't see Curnen for a couple of days, he noticed, of course he noticed, but it was a day or two more before he really started to worry. When he saw Kash finally happy and with a red tiefling who could only be the woman he'd been missing for months... Curnen and Kash had been pretty close.
He wasn't ready to believe she'd disappeared from the inn, the way some others had. Instead he'd gone out looking for her, taking to the air and flying out in a spiral from the inn, always going out too far and winding up back where he'd started. So he tried a different approach. He was on the roof of the main building – in sight of where he'd come back when he'd gone out too far, and where she would show up if she did the same. When he'd first arrived, she'd been singing in just this spot, and other than a way home, he couldn't think of a better first sight and sound. She'd been calling for Rob, not him, but it had called him just the same. He didn't know or care if that was Tufa magic or coincidence or Their mysterious ways, just that it had called him.
So he sang now, calling for her. He didn't notice her when she first appeared, from just enough of a distance the wilding on all fours didn't click as being the girl he was hoping to find. But the movement was enough to draw his attention, and when he looked more carefully, it was the untamed tumble of long, black hair he recognized first, and then the quiver of tension that looked so wrong on her, like she was going to flee any second. His voice faltered on a note, but then he steadied, continuing a little louder now, singing to her, watching closely. If she took off, he'd follow, but if she could come to him, even better.
Curnen sat back on her haunches and listened to him sing, closing her eyes and rocking back and forth with the music. Her body was a knot of indecision. Should she go to him? Should she flee? Could she even speak if she tried to? Could she sing? She didn't know. She was terrified to try.
Her head fell back and she howled at the sky, high and thin. It was rather too girl to be coyote.
But then, it was rather too coyote to be girl, either.
The sight of her had hurt, but that howl was a stab Coby felt straight to the heart. He'd heard her make a sound like that once before, and this time it felt even worse. His wings flared out and he pushed off the roof and toward her without a thought other than needing to soothe her somehow. He landed near her, but not within reach of his open arms, hoping it was the right thing, when what he to do was hold her close and keep her safe. "Come here, butterfly," and "You're not alone."
Curnen stiffened and almost startled away. And then she seemed to decide he wasn't a threat after all and came closer, nuzzling her head under his hand like an animal seeking to be pet.
His hand followed the curve of her skull, running over her hair. Guitar-callused fingers caught at tangles, although he kept his touch gentle. He hummed low, the song he'd been singing when she appeared, and still petting her, sat down on the ground beside her. "We've done something like this before," he told her after a little while. "In London. I found you on the street, took you back to my place. Held you while you cried. That was the first time I showed you my wings."
He sat, and she all but climbed into his lap and curled up against him.
Curnen was quiet herself for a time. Then the noise started. It wasn't quite howling or crying or moaning. Just pain, filling her throat and flooding her brain. She'd been running from it for days, and it hadn't changed anything. If anything, it was worse. Because now she knew she couldn't run from it. It was just going to fucking be there. Like her heart had been replaced by this ball of glass shards.
Or maybe like it had been a ball of glass shards all along, just so wrapped up in duct tape that she'd been able to pretend it was whole and functioning.
Curnen crawled into his lap, and Coby knew what to do. He wrapped his arms around her, and the wings around them both. He rested his cheek on her head and held her while she let out all the hurt she'd been holding in. He didn't try to tell her things would okay. He didn't ask her what was wrong, or what he could do. He just held her and hurt along with her, an ache in his chest that felt like it might never stop.
It felt like it was never going to end, or like she'd rip open before it did, and she screamed and wailed and tore at her hair, and the why of it all came flooding in even though she desperately didn't want it to.
Curnen had only needed a glance at the Tiefling woman to know who she was. To know what this meant.
And then she'd run away.
Because that door had just been violently slammed in her face.
Because even if it hadn't, she wasn't enough of a person anyway.
Because Brushy was dead.
Because even though she'd barely seen the woman for a minute she could just. Fucking. Tell.
But Curnen's body couldn't keep up with the demands of her grief, and inevitably she went quiet. Not because she was calm, but because she was exhausted.
Coby couldn't say when he started rocking her gently, some time between when she started to howl and when she was too wrung out to carry on. After she grew quiet, he continued a little longer, then murmured softly, "Trust me to carry you, butterfly?"
Curnen nodded, slow and sluggish, her head heavy and thick. Even now, she couldn't find words. Could she speak? Maybe that was all done now.
That he remembered too. Standing without letting her go was a trick, but he'd gotten better about using his wings for balance and he managed. Holding her close, he lifted into the air. She weighed less than Jag – and she'd lost weight too, since she'd been gone – and they weren't going nearly as far. He could carry her without any trouble, and did, straight back to his room, in through the balcony. Jag wasn't there, but middle of the day, Coby hadn't expected he would be. Even if he had, he probably would've understood. "Let's get you cleaned up some, beautiful. And I'll order something to eat."
Curnen tried to speak, but anything she might have said came out as nothing more than a hoarse croak. She sighed before she just nodded. And then she touched her throat with her fingers.
"It'll come back." He believed it because he had to. But she'd built herself back up once already, twice from Coby's perspective. She could do it again.
"If I were doing this right, I'd put you in a huge tub with steaming hot water and a mass of bubbles," Coby told her. When he was coming out of one of his really bad spells, it usually helped, having someone to fill the silence and keep him focused on the here and now. "Instead we'll have to make do with a hot shower." He reached in and turned on the water, holding a hand under the stream to feel it warm up. "You'll feel more h- here once you do."
Curnen nodded her understanding and moved away from him so she could strip down. Her clothes were filthy, and she didn't entirely understand why she still had them. In the woods, she'd kept stealing new clothes. Terrible clothes that had been thrown away, but it had been a priority to stay covered somehow even when her mind was in tatters. To remember she was still a person. Without that incentive... perhaps she hadn't been gone long enough.
Even so, she was almost more at ease once she was naked. She kicked all of her clothes into a pile in the corner of the bathroom.
"I can stay, if you want me to." For him, touch helped, company helped, someone to keep one step following the next helped, when he was too lost to manage on his own. Another time, Curnen naked and Coby offering to shower with her would mean something completely different. Not today. "Or I can go ahead and order some food. I know you're hungry." Curnen was always hungry, even when she wasn't, and she'd been living wild for what, a week now.
Another time, Curnen would absolutely have taken him up on this offer. But she didn't know if she could bear any hint of that kind of intimacy right now, even from someone as dear to her as Coby was. She shook her head as if trying to clear it, to dislodge one word. "Food," she said, voice rasping with disuse and crying. She startled. She hadn't expected it to actually come.
He nodded, giving her a sad smile. One word was one more than she'd been sure of before, and wanting to eat was a good thing. So was having enough of an opinion to make a decision. "I'll be right out here," he said from the door way after double checking there were towels and a robe where she could find them easily. "Take as long as you want."
Once he got on the phone, he realized he wasn't sure what to order, but Emma was understanding and helpful when he explained he was with a friend going through a rough time, which he probably should have expected, from the way Jag talked about his girlfriend. She suggested breakfast foods as easy and comforting to eat, with enough variety to pick and choose if appetites were off, and from the way she talked, he was happy to leave the specifics up to her. He didn't consider until after he'd hung up the phone that she might have thought it was for him and Jag. Hopefully not, though, since he'd asked if whoever brought it up could grab a t-shirt and sweatpants from the gift shop on their way.
Curnen stayed in the shower a long time. There was more than a little dirt to wash away, yes, but she didn't need to be so deliberate and careful. She got to know herself again, as a two-legged creature. Not as a woman. Not even as a person. But she walked and moved upright, and that was the way she was meant to be.
She washed herself thoroughly, then let the heat seep into her bones. By the time she finally stepped out, she felt warm and almost sleepy.
Someone else would have wrapped herself in the towel and worn it. Curnen dried herself, left the towel by the sink, and came out combing her hair with her fingers. She knew Coby had a roommate, but she didn't care. And he must have seen a naked woman before.
Coby wasn't thinking about Jag when Curnen came out of the bathroom; he was still worried about Curnen. If she wanted to be naked, that was okay with him. If it was just she hadn't thought about clothes, they'd deal with that later. "Food should be here any minute now." In the meantime, he grabbed a comb from the nightstand and sat in the middle of the bed, patting the spot in front of him. "C'mere. We'll see if I can do something with those tangles."
It wasn't the first time Curnen had crawled across this bed, but it was the first time she'd done it entirely without sex on her mind. She planted herself in front of Coby, sweeping her dark hair back over her shoulders. In that moment actually, she was thinking of Bliss. Bliss's hair tangled like anybody's did in the morning, but it was never wild like hers was. A few strokes and it was always a smooth river of black silk. Curnen's hair had never done that, even on the best day.
Curnen's hair was like her, never completely tamed, and Coby liked her, and her hair, that way. But if her hair was a reflection of her self, some TLC to unsnarl the worst of it might help her unsnarl some too. He palmed slow stroked along one arm, feeling how tiny she was but already how much calmer than she had been. Then he started at the ends, slow and careful. As he loosened a knot practically a strand at a time, he began to sing softly to fill the empty space where speech would have gone.
Rise up this mornin'
Smiled with the risin' sun
Three little birds
Pitch by my doorstep
Singin' sweet songs
Of melodies pure and true
Saying', (this is my message to you)
Singing' don't worry 'bout a thing
'Cause every little thing gonna be alright
Singing' don't worry (don't worry) 'bout a thing
'Cause every little thing gonna be alright
Curnen didn't know this song, but that didn't keep her from joining in. She closed her eyes and began to hum along in harmony as soon as she had a grasp of the key and the chords. It was almost an instinct. She didn't know anymore if this was a skill she'd learned or been born knowing.
The song was simple and repetitive, easy to learn, but Curnen harmonized beautifully and effortlessly. He was just around to the chorus again with her accompanying, when there was a knock at the door. Coby kissed her head, wet hair and all, and maneuvered himself out from behind her and off the bed to answer it. After a brief and quiet conversation, he came back in carrying a large, heavy looking tray of covered plates and some folded pink fabric tucked under one arm. He didn't bother with a table, just set the tray down on the bed in front of Curnen. There were simple things: fresh fruit, yogurt, buttered toast, scrambled eggs with cheese. Bacon – he was glad to see it, because bacon made a lot of things better. A gravy covered biscuit that smelled amazing. A tall stack of pancakes with a little pitcher of syrup. A large glass of apple juice and a carafe of coffee took up the last available space on the tray.
"I got you some clothes, too, if you want something clean that won't be as big on you as something of mine," he explained, dropping the pink shirt and sweats on the end of the bed. "And I wasn't sure what you'd want to eat, so... whatever looks good to you."
Curnen sighed in something that was almost relief--at food, and at not needing to put her dirty clothes back on. She made herself reach for the clothes first, even as her stomach complained and her mouth watered. She didn't particularly want to be dressed. It was a defense mechanism. A way to anchor herself and remember that she wasn't an animal.
It was a little surprising when Curnen grabbed the clothes first. If Coby had tried to guess, he would've said food first, clothes maybe later. But whatever worked for Curnen was good by him. He hurt seeing her so raw and shattered, and maybe they'd talk about that after food, maybe they wouldn't. "Okay with you if I steal a cup of the coffee?"
It took Curnen a couple of tries after she'd wriggled into the offered clothing, but finally she managed, "Steal whatever." Whatever came out as three very distinct syllables, but it came out.
Bliss would tell her to go slow, so she didn't make herself sick, and between her big sister bossing her from her head and a lifetime of being told not to waste food, Curnen forced herself to go at the food methodically. Protein first, eggs and bacon, before she went at the pancakes.
Thinking even this hard was difficult and tiring. But the alternative was eating too much too fast and then all of it coming back up. It was the aversion to how shitty than felt more than anything that kept her on track.
She could have nodded, or shook her head or snarled or guarded the carafe if the answer had been no, but words were a good sign. So was eating, and taking her time with the food. Coby poured himself a cup, grabbed his guitar, and sat on the bed, leaning back against the headboard. He started to play, letting his fingers take over, moving from one tune to another, just going with the flow, songs he'd learned from Máire or from his folks. Old songs and ones that felt like they'd been passed down through generations.
He knew her so well, sometimes it hurt. Though she wasn't quite out of the woods yet. She was trying too hard too fast to swing back into being a person, and she was going to crash sooner or later.
Even through tears trying to close her throat with a lump, Curnen continued to chew and swallow and make as much of the food on that tray disappear as she could manage. Part because of genuine hunger, part because it was something to do, and part because she was trying to fill the hole inside. Tiny as she was, she still swallowed most of it. And looked at the rest like she was trying to decide if she could do it.
More accurately, she was trying to decide if eating everything would just hurt.
Maybe Coby should have been surprised how much she ate, but Curnen had had an appetite as long as he'd known her. Even Bliss had joked about it, how Curnen wouldn't have gone off with him when Bliss had sandwiches. Still, when she slowed down, he spoke up. "We can always order more later. No reason to add indigestion to the suck of life these days."
Curnen closed her eyes and made herself listen to that logic. Her brain was trying to tell her that she shouldn't leave food, because she didn't know when she'd eat again. Coby was telling her that that wasn't true.
She nodded and deliberately pushed herself back from the tray.
Coby set his guitar aside, moved the tray to the floor by the bed, and stretched out again, holding his arm out to make space for Curnen. "Think you could sleep a little, butterfly?" Or curl up together and let him hold her. She had to be exhausted.
Curnen crawled into that space beside Coby and curled up against him as tiny as she could. She was exhausted, and at the same time she couldn't imagine sleeping. Sleep was where Brushy was, and that was a double-edged sword. When she could find him, she slept all the easier. And it cut all the deeper when she woke up.
He shifted onto his side, arms wrapping warmly around her and his wings manifesting so one draped over her like a blanket, the other lying along his back. He kissed the top of her head, then rested his cheek there. "You don't have to talk about it, especially when words don't want to come. But you can tell me anything, later, if you need to talk," he told her softly. He let himself relax and slowed his breathing, hoping maybe it would with her exhaustion lull her down into sleep.
Curnen was not in a position to resist the warmth and softness around her, the bed beneath, the wing over her, and Coby holding her close. Gradually her body loosened and lost its rigidity and she twined her limbs around him with a soft sigh of relief.
What would I do without you?
She did not want to sleep. But her body overruled her and pushed her down into dreaming.
It hurts. Hurts like dying. So she runs. What is it? She can't remember. She doesn't want to remember. She can't remember.
Won't.
Can't.
... Won't.
She knows the coyotes are out there somewhere; she's heard them howling. She's howled back to them many times. She knows where they are, how to find them, how to ingratiate herself into their pack. So she does.
Because she's a wild animal, and she shouldn't see people, or talk to them, or sing, even to herself.
The sun and moon pass by overhead. Twice? More? She loses all sense of time.
She hunts with the coyotes, she kills with them, she sleeps with them, she wakes and does it all again. This is where she really belongs. It's easy. It's so easy. It doesn't hurt.
She runs far and fast, and it's almost like flying.
It's never like flying.
It's the best she gets.
It's the best she deserves.
She runs so far she comes round again and there's so much pink. So much fucking pink--
And that was how Curnen Overbay came back to the Madonna Inn after disappearing for a week: on all fours with black eyes and bloody mouth. And ready to bolt and do it right this time.
In London, going a few days without seeing a friend probably wouldn't have registered. Hell, a few weeks might not have stood out. Here, with a few dozen people, if somebody he'd seen in passing but never spoken to wasn't around for a few days, Coby thought he'd probably notice. When he didn't see Curnen for a couple of days, he noticed, of course he noticed, but it was a day or two more before he really started to worry. When he saw Kash finally happy and with a red tiefling who could only be the woman he'd been missing for months... Curnen and Kash had been pretty close.
He wasn't ready to believe she'd disappeared from the inn, the way some others had. Instead he'd gone out looking for her, taking to the air and flying out in a spiral from the inn, always going out too far and winding up back where he'd started. So he tried a different approach. He was on the roof of the main building – in sight of where he'd come back when he'd gone out too far, and where she would show up if she did the same. When he'd first arrived, she'd been singing in just this spot, and other than a way home, he couldn't think of a better first sight and sound. She'd been calling for Rob, not him, but it had called him just the same. He didn't know or care if that was Tufa magic or coincidence or Their mysterious ways, just that it had called him.
So he sang now, calling for her. He didn't notice her when she first appeared, from just enough of a distance the wilding on all fours didn't click as being the girl he was hoping to find. But the movement was enough to draw his attention, and when he looked more carefully, it was the untamed tumble of long, black hair he recognized first, and then the quiver of tension that looked so wrong on her, like she was going to flee any second. His voice faltered on a note, but then he steadied, continuing a little louder now, singing to her, watching closely. If she took off, he'd follow, but if she could come to him, even better.
Curnen sat back on her haunches and listened to him sing, closing her eyes and rocking back and forth with the music. Her body was a knot of indecision. Should she go to him? Should she flee? Could she even speak if she tried to? Could she sing? She didn't know. She was terrified to try.
Her head fell back and she howled at the sky, high and thin. It was rather too girl to be coyote.
But then, it was rather too coyote to be girl, either.
The sight of her had hurt, but that howl was a stab Coby felt straight to the heart. He'd heard her make a sound like that once before, and this time it felt even worse. His wings flared out and he pushed off the roof and toward her without a thought other than needing to soothe her somehow. He landed near her, but not within reach of his open arms, hoping it was the right thing, when what he to do was hold her close and keep her safe. "Come here, butterfly," and "You're not alone."
Curnen stiffened and almost startled away. And then she seemed to decide he wasn't a threat after all and came closer, nuzzling her head under his hand like an animal seeking to be pet.
His hand followed the curve of her skull, running over her hair. Guitar-callused fingers caught at tangles, although he kept his touch gentle. He hummed low, the song he'd been singing when she appeared, and still petting her, sat down on the ground beside her. "We've done something like this before," he told her after a little while. "In London. I found you on the street, took you back to my place. Held you while you cried. That was the first time I showed you my wings."
He sat, and she all but climbed into his lap and curled up against him.
Curnen was quiet herself for a time. Then the noise started. It wasn't quite howling or crying or moaning. Just pain, filling her throat and flooding her brain. She'd been running from it for days, and it hadn't changed anything. If anything, it was worse. Because now she knew she couldn't run from it. It was just going to fucking be there. Like her heart had been replaced by this ball of glass shards.
Or maybe like it had been a ball of glass shards all along, just so wrapped up in duct tape that she'd been able to pretend it was whole and functioning.
Curnen crawled into his lap, and Coby knew what to do. He wrapped his arms around her, and the wings around them both. He rested his cheek on her head and held her while she let out all the hurt she'd been holding in. He didn't try to tell her things would okay. He didn't ask her what was wrong, or what he could do. He just held her and hurt along with her, an ache in his chest that felt like it might never stop.
It felt like it was never going to end, or like she'd rip open before it did, and she screamed and wailed and tore at her hair, and the why of it all came flooding in even though she desperately didn't want it to.
Curnen had only needed a glance at the Tiefling woman to know who she was. To know what this meant.
And then she'd run away.
Because that door had just been violently slammed in her face.
Because even if it hadn't, she wasn't enough of a person anyway.
Because Brushy was dead.
Because even though she'd barely seen the woman for a minute she could just. Fucking. Tell.
But Curnen's body couldn't keep up with the demands of her grief, and inevitably she went quiet. Not because she was calm, but because she was exhausted.
Coby couldn't say when he started rocking her gently, some time between when she started to howl and when she was too wrung out to carry on. After she grew quiet, he continued a little longer, then murmured softly, "Trust me to carry you, butterfly?"
Curnen nodded, slow and sluggish, her head heavy and thick. Even now, she couldn't find words. Could she speak? Maybe that was all done now.
That he remembered too. Standing without letting her go was a trick, but he'd gotten better about using his wings for balance and he managed. Holding her close, he lifted into the air. She weighed less than Jag – and she'd lost weight too, since she'd been gone – and they weren't going nearly as far. He could carry her without any trouble, and did, straight back to his room, in through the balcony. Jag wasn't there, but middle of the day, Coby hadn't expected he would be. Even if he had, he probably would've understood. "Let's get you cleaned up some, beautiful. And I'll order something to eat."
Curnen tried to speak, but anything she might have said came out as nothing more than a hoarse croak. She sighed before she just nodded. And then she touched her throat with her fingers.
"It'll come back." He believed it because he had to. But she'd built herself back up once already, twice from Coby's perspective. She could do it again.
"If I were doing this right, I'd put you in a huge tub with steaming hot water and a mass of bubbles," Coby told her. When he was coming out of one of his really bad spells, it usually helped, having someone to fill the silence and keep him focused on the here and now. "Instead we'll have to make do with a hot shower." He reached in and turned on the water, holding a hand under the stream to feel it warm up. "You'll feel more h- here once you do."
Curnen nodded her understanding and moved away from him so she could strip down. Her clothes were filthy, and she didn't entirely understand why she still had them. In the woods, she'd kept stealing new clothes. Terrible clothes that had been thrown away, but it had been a priority to stay covered somehow even when her mind was in tatters. To remember she was still a person. Without that incentive... perhaps she hadn't been gone long enough.
Even so, she was almost more at ease once she was naked. She kicked all of her clothes into a pile in the corner of the bathroom.
"I can stay, if you want me to." For him, touch helped, company helped, someone to keep one step following the next helped, when he was too lost to manage on his own. Another time, Curnen naked and Coby offering to shower with her would mean something completely different. Not today. "Or I can go ahead and order some food. I know you're hungry." Curnen was always hungry, even when she wasn't, and she'd been living wild for what, a week now.
Another time, Curnen would absolutely have taken him up on this offer. But she didn't know if she could bear any hint of that kind of intimacy right now, even from someone as dear to her as Coby was. She shook her head as if trying to clear it, to dislodge one word. "Food," she said, voice rasping with disuse and crying. She startled. She hadn't expected it to actually come.
He nodded, giving her a sad smile. One word was one more than she'd been sure of before, and wanting to eat was a good thing. So was having enough of an opinion to make a decision. "I'll be right out here," he said from the door way after double checking there were towels and a robe where she could find them easily. "Take as long as you want."
Once he got on the phone, he realized he wasn't sure what to order, but Emma was understanding and helpful when he explained he was with a friend going through a rough time, which he probably should have expected, from the way Jag talked about his girlfriend. She suggested breakfast foods as easy and comforting to eat, with enough variety to pick and choose if appetites were off, and from the way she talked, he was happy to leave the specifics up to her. He didn't consider until after he'd hung up the phone that she might have thought it was for him and Jag. Hopefully not, though, since he'd asked if whoever brought it up could grab a t-shirt and sweatpants from the gift shop on their way.
Curnen stayed in the shower a long time. There was more than a little dirt to wash away, yes, but she didn't need to be so deliberate and careful. She got to know herself again, as a two-legged creature. Not as a woman. Not even as a person. But she walked and moved upright, and that was the way she was meant to be.
She washed herself thoroughly, then let the heat seep into her bones. By the time she finally stepped out, she felt warm and almost sleepy.
Someone else would have wrapped herself in the towel and worn it. Curnen dried herself, left the towel by the sink, and came out combing her hair with her fingers. She knew Coby had a roommate, but she didn't care. And he must have seen a naked woman before.
Coby wasn't thinking about Jag when Curnen came out of the bathroom; he was still worried about Curnen. If she wanted to be naked, that was okay with him. If it was just she hadn't thought about clothes, they'd deal with that later. "Food should be here any minute now." In the meantime, he grabbed a comb from the nightstand and sat in the middle of the bed, patting the spot in front of him. "C'mere. We'll see if I can do something with those tangles."
It wasn't the first time Curnen had crawled across this bed, but it was the first time she'd done it entirely without sex on her mind. She planted herself in front of Coby, sweeping her dark hair back over her shoulders. In that moment actually, she was thinking of Bliss. Bliss's hair tangled like anybody's did in the morning, but it was never wild like hers was. A few strokes and it was always a smooth river of black silk. Curnen's hair had never done that, even on the best day.
Curnen's hair was like her, never completely tamed, and Coby liked her, and her hair, that way. But if her hair was a reflection of her self, some TLC to unsnarl the worst of it might help her unsnarl some too. He palmed slow stroked along one arm, feeling how tiny she was but already how much calmer than she had been. Then he started at the ends, slow and careful. As he loosened a knot practically a strand at a time, he began to sing softly to fill the empty space where speech would have gone.
Rise up this mornin'
Smiled with the risin' sun
Three little birds
Pitch by my doorstep
Singin' sweet songs
Of melodies pure and true
Saying', (this is my message to you)
Singing' don't worry 'bout a thing
'Cause every little thing gonna be alright
Singing' don't worry (don't worry) 'bout a thing
'Cause every little thing gonna be alright
Curnen didn't know this song, but that didn't keep her from joining in. She closed her eyes and began to hum along in harmony as soon as she had a grasp of the key and the chords. It was almost an instinct. She didn't know anymore if this was a skill she'd learned or been born knowing.
The song was simple and repetitive, easy to learn, but Curnen harmonized beautifully and effortlessly. He was just around to the chorus again with her accompanying, when there was a knock at the door. Coby kissed her head, wet hair and all, and maneuvered himself out from behind her and off the bed to answer it. After a brief and quiet conversation, he came back in carrying a large, heavy looking tray of covered plates and some folded pink fabric tucked under one arm. He didn't bother with a table, just set the tray down on the bed in front of Curnen. There were simple things: fresh fruit, yogurt, buttered toast, scrambled eggs with cheese. Bacon – he was glad to see it, because bacon made a lot of things better. A gravy covered biscuit that smelled amazing. A tall stack of pancakes with a little pitcher of syrup. A large glass of apple juice and a carafe of coffee took up the last available space on the tray.
"I got you some clothes, too, if you want something clean that won't be as big on you as something of mine," he explained, dropping the pink shirt and sweats on the end of the bed. "And I wasn't sure what you'd want to eat, so... whatever looks good to you."
Curnen sighed in something that was almost relief--at food, and at not needing to put her dirty clothes back on. She made herself reach for the clothes first, even as her stomach complained and her mouth watered. She didn't particularly want to be dressed. It was a defense mechanism. A way to anchor herself and remember that she wasn't an animal.
It was a little surprising when Curnen grabbed the clothes first. If Coby had tried to guess, he would've said food first, clothes maybe later. But whatever worked for Curnen was good by him. He hurt seeing her so raw and shattered, and maybe they'd talk about that after food, maybe they wouldn't. "Okay with you if I steal a cup of the coffee?"
It took Curnen a couple of tries after she'd wriggled into the offered clothing, but finally she managed, "Steal whatever." Whatever came out as three very distinct syllables, but it came out.
Bliss would tell her to go slow, so she didn't make herself sick, and between her big sister bossing her from her head and a lifetime of being told not to waste food, Curnen forced herself to go at the food methodically. Protein first, eggs and bacon, before she went at the pancakes.
Thinking even this hard was difficult and tiring. But the alternative was eating too much too fast and then all of it coming back up. It was the aversion to how shitty than felt more than anything that kept her on track.
She could have nodded, or shook her head or snarled or guarded the carafe if the answer had been no, but words were a good sign. So was eating, and taking her time with the food. Coby poured himself a cup, grabbed his guitar, and sat on the bed, leaning back against the headboard. He started to play, letting his fingers take over, moving from one tune to another, just going with the flow, songs he'd learned from Máire or from his folks. Old songs and ones that felt like they'd been passed down through generations.
He knew her so well, sometimes it hurt. Though she wasn't quite out of the woods yet. She was trying too hard too fast to swing back into being a person, and she was going to crash sooner or later.
Even through tears trying to close her throat with a lump, Curnen continued to chew and swallow and make as much of the food on that tray disappear as she could manage. Part because of genuine hunger, part because it was something to do, and part because she was trying to fill the hole inside. Tiny as she was, she still swallowed most of it. And looked at the rest like she was trying to decide if she could do it.
More accurately, she was trying to decide if eating everything would just hurt.
Maybe Coby should have been surprised how much she ate, but Curnen had had an appetite as long as he'd known her. Even Bliss had joked about it, how Curnen wouldn't have gone off with him when Bliss had sandwiches. Still, when she slowed down, he spoke up. "We can always order more later. No reason to add indigestion to the suck of life these days."
Curnen closed her eyes and made herself listen to that logic. Her brain was trying to tell her that she shouldn't leave food, because she didn't know when she'd eat again. Coby was telling her that that wasn't true.
She nodded and deliberately pushed herself back from the tray.
Coby set his guitar aside, moved the tray to the floor by the bed, and stretched out again, holding his arm out to make space for Curnen. "Think you could sleep a little, butterfly?" Or curl up together and let him hold her. She had to be exhausted.
Curnen crawled into that space beside Coby and curled up against him as tiny as she could. She was exhausted, and at the same time she couldn't imagine sleeping. Sleep was where Brushy was, and that was a double-edged sword. When she could find him, she slept all the easier. And it cut all the deeper when she woke up.
He shifted onto his side, arms wrapping warmly around her and his wings manifesting so one draped over her like a blanket, the other lying along his back. He kissed the top of her head, then rested his cheek there. "You don't have to talk about it, especially when words don't want to come. But you can tell me anything, later, if you need to talk," he told her softly. He let himself relax and slowed his breathing, hoping maybe it would with her exhaustion lull her down into sleep.
Curnen was not in a position to resist the warmth and softness around her, the bed beneath, the wing over her, and Coby holding her close. Gradually her body loosened and lost its rigidity and she twined her limbs around him with a soft sigh of relief.
What would I do without you?
She did not want to sleep. But her body overruled her and pushed her down into dreaming.